Figure 1

Pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. (A) Tangles and plaques in Alzheimer’s disease. Neurofibrillary tangles are intraneuronal and consist of paired helical filaments, the subunit of which is a microtubule-associated protein called tau that has been phosphorylated at multiple sites (dark staining structures). Amyloid plaques are extracellular and are largely composed of a ∼4-kDa protein called the amyloid β-protein (Aβ) (round diffuse structures). See Acknowledgements for source information on panel A. (B) Lewy bodies in Parkinson’s disease. Nerve cell with 3 Lewy bodies that are double-stained for α-synuclein (brown) and ubiquitin (blue). Where only α-synuclein is stained, the color appears as pale reddish-brown, but where ubiquitin also is stained, the superposition of color gives a dark black and brown appearance. The blue staining is not seen on its own, because all the ubiquitin-immunoreactive structures are also positive for α-synuclein. The halo of each Lewy body is strongly immunoreactive for ubiquitin, whereas both the core and the halo of each Lewy body are immunoreactive for α-synuclein. Bar, 10 µm. Panel B has been reproduced from Figure 3 of Spillantini et al. (96), © 1993–2005 by the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, all rights reserved.